Fans say farewell to four-year dudes Yancy Gates, Dion Dixon

Last week’s win over Louisville has gone a long way toward
moving the Bearcats off the NCAA Tournament bubble and into the 10-seed area of
most projections. A win at South Florida last Sunday would have all-but-secured
the invitation, but the dudes lost by a point on the road, 46-45.

Tonight UC will welcome No. 7 Marquette to Fifth Third Arena
under a bunch of weird circumstances: Marquette kicked the crap out of the
Bearcats 95-78 on Feb.
11, and it’s Senior Night for a couple of UC players who aren’t used to being
trampled so badly (at least not in recent years).

“You know that it’s Senior Night and we feel it,”
Gates said, “but I think we’ll feel it more when we get on the court tomorrow.
Right now, our focus is so much on we need this win that we really don’t have
time to sit back and think, ‘Oh, tomorrow’s Senior Night.’ ”

“I don’t know how I’ll feel tomorrow,” Dixon said.
“We’re just trying to focus on getting this win. That’s the main thing.”

After tonight, the Bearcats have one remaining regular-season game, at
Villanova on Saturday. Assuming they can’t handle the rematch with Marquette,
they’ll really need to beat Villanova to avoid entering the Big East tournament
on a three-game losing streak. If they were to drop their first tournament game
after that, they’d be sitting at 20-12 on Selection Sunday with a real ugly
RPI.

One win out of UC’s remaining
regular-season schedule or in the Big East tournament should be enough to earn
a spot in the NCAA Tournament for the second straight season. But a win over
South Florida last Sunday probably would have assured it as well.

It is under such circumstances that two of Mick Cronin’s
most influential recruits take the court tonight for their final home game.
Gates is a hometown player who chose UC over Ohio State, West Virginia and
Xavier, among others, and has traveled a fairly up-and-down road during his
four years. Gates surely wants to end his senior season on a high note after
the Crosstown Shootout fiasco, which threatens to overshadow his years of hard
work and importance to Mick Cronin’s rebuilding effort at UC. Gates currently
ranks 17th on UC’s career scoring list and is the only Bearcat to ever lead his
team in rebounding four straight seasons.

Dixon came to UC from a Chicago public school where he used
to jam on a bunch of high schoolers. He’s contributed
every year, as his 1,183 career points show —
good for 27th all-time at UC. Dixon’s versatility has been a huge help to
Cronin, who has used Dion as a shooting guard and point guard during various
parts of his career. And Dion tries to thump it on people even though he’s just
a little too small to do it all the time. We still really appreciate that.

After everything this year’s team — and these two
seniors, specifically — has been through, tonight is surely going to be
an energetic and emotional night down at The Shoe. Hopefully the ’Cats can hang
with Marquette — securing an NCAA Tournament-securing win on Senior Night
would be a beautiful way for the careers of these two players to end.

A few weeks before the spring signing period began, Mick Cronin hinted on a local radio station that there would be some surprises in store for Bearcat fans come April 15. Well, April 15 has come and gone, and with the signing period ending next week (May 20) it’s nearly time to panic.

One of Cronin’s prized recruits last year was 7-foot-3 John Riek, who never got on the court for the Bearcats. Riek spent the year rehabbing his knee, and due to some weird NCAA paperwork/eligibility issues found himself uncommitted to UC this spring. He surprisingly signed with the University of Mississippi Mississippi State this month, leaving UC without the giant dude it was expecting to put up front with sophomore Yancy Gates.

St. John's needs to get some new uniforms. Nobody's trying to act like UC's tri-colored Adidas triangle theme is super cool, but the Red Storm dudes look like they’re wearing the high school JV jerseys handed down by the 1988 state championship team.

The Johnnies got handled like a JV team for most of Wednesday night’s game, a 71-61 UC win that wasn’t as close as a 10-point difference would suggest.

So, a coach recruits a really good point guard out of high school and assumes that starting a freshman in the Big East will have its rough moments but that the experience will go a long way toward the kid’s — and the program’s — development. Then the kid gets hurt in preseason practice and the whole season is ruined.

Is this the position that Mick Cronin has allowed the UC basketball team to be in? Is this team seriously going to go into next season with a recently injured freshman point guard with no backup? Did anyone ever think they would wake up one day and say, “Dang, I sure wish Jamual Warren was still a Bearcat.”

Since writing about Jeff Keppinger and the Reds is growing tiresome with so little new happening these days in Reds-fan land, I'm going to take a moment to lament another franchise that's seen a decade pass since its championship-caliber days.

The New York Knicks lost to Philly the other night, preventing New York from achieving its first four-game winning streak in more than three years.

Bearcats one step closer to NCAA Tournament after win over Louisville

The Cincinnati Bearcats look one step closer to being a lock for their second straight NCAA tournament appearance after a 60-56 win against Big East rivals Louisville in front of a sellout crowd at Fifth Third Arena Thursday night.

UC entered the game as the second-best 3-point shooting team by percentage – 36 percent – and the most 3-pointers made with 203 on the year. This theme continued as the ‘Cats went 11-27 from behind the arc including eight in the first half. Cashmere Wright fueled the 3-point barrage as he nailed a career-best, six long balls. Louisville on the other hand struggled mightily from behind the arc finishing the game 1-14.

UC’s ability to make the long ball made up for an otherwise disappointing night from the field. The Bearcats made only eight 2-point field goals at a miserable 26 percent clip. Louisville didn’t shoot much better; leading scorer Kyle Kuric managed only 4 points, all from the free-throw line.

Big man Gorgui Dieng finished with 11 points and 13 rebounds for the Cardinals. Peyton Siva added 14 points and 4 assists in the Louisville loss. Louisville fell to 9-6 in the Big East while UC improved to 10-5. Both teams have three conference games remaining.

After last night's win over No. 17 Louisville, UC sits in a fourth-place tie with Georgetown and South Florida, who share 10-5 records, and UC holds the tiebreaker against Georgetown. The top four seeds in the conference tournament will received double byes and an automatic bid into the quarterfinals. The Bearcats have games remaining at USF and Villanova — a team they beat once already — and Senior Night when Marquette comes to town. In all likelihood the fourth seed will be a fight between UC and Georgetown. The Hoyas have the tougher schedule as they welcome Villanova and Notre Dame, which has won nine straight, while they travel to Marquette to end the schedule.

Only weeks away from Selection Sunday, the Bearcats should guaranteed a spot in the NCAA Tournament with another win in the last three games. Xavier, on the other hand, needs to win out and have some results go their way if they want to make the Big Dance.

The Musketeers lost at Massachusetts on Tuesday night and are three games back of the conference lead with three games remaining. League leaders Temple are not going to lose three games, so Xavier will have to make a push for the conference tournament title or hope the selection committee looks upon them favorably.

A sloppy evening from the Muskies combined with a outstanding performance by Massachusetts’ guard Chaz Williams led to an easy win for the Minutemen. Xavier turned the ball over 20 times and could not compensate for the career-high 29 points from Williams, including six 3-pointers. Xavier had four players score double-digits and Dez Wells led the way with 19 points, but Wells also led Xavier with 6 turnovers.

The Musketeers' remaining schedule includes two sub .500 teams in Charlotte and Richmond and a trip to second-place Saint Louis — which beat Xavier by five at the Cintas Center back on Jan. 25.

UC and X still have work to do

Two weeks ago it was UC that was on top of their game; not so anymore. The Bearcats have lost three straight and struggled mightily in Piscataway last Saturday. The Bearcats had a less than impressive shooting night at a 35 percent clip. The only exceptions were Dion Dixon and Yancy Gates, who went a combined 13-21.

Perhaps the biggest reason for the loss was not an inability to make shots but a lack of second half defense. UC held Eli Carter — Rutgers' best player — in check in the first half, allowing only 2 points. In the second 20 minutes of play Carter exploded for 15 points and buried the Bearcats.

It was a disappointing week for both UC and Xavier as the past seven days have seen the teams go a combined 0-4. While both teams faced tough opposition I would have expected both to at least earn one win out of the two games they played.

UC, Xavier play second-round NCAA Tournament games today

It’s a big day for fans here in the Queen City, for those repping the navy and white and the red and black. After the five months of build-up March Madness has finally arrived and after success for other semi-local teams — Ohio State, Kentucky and Louisville — the Bearcats and the Muskies look to continue the trend.

Sixth-seeded Cincinnati will face the eleventh-seeded Texas Longhorns in the second round of the East region. The game is slated to tip at 12:15 p.m. today on CBS.

The Bearcats will need to contain the Longhorn’s one-man show in J’Covan Brown. The junior guard averaged a Big 12 best 20.1 points per game on a team that averaged 73 a game. Production drops off seriously after Brown — Texas only has one other player averaging double figure points. If the Bearcats decide to play man-to-man, a combo of Dion Dixon and JaQuan Parker will look to slow down Brown. Cashmere Wright will have the duty of slowing down freshman point guard Myck Kabongo, a former McDonald’s All-American.

Offensively the ‘Cats will look to use their superior size — Texas has only one player taller than 6-foot-7 — down low with Yancy Gates, Cheikh Mbodj and Justin Jackson. If UC can get the ball down low on a consistent basis then the duo of Wright and Dixon will be able to penetrate and create open outside shots for Parker and leading scorer Sean Kilpatrick. Unlike Texas, UC has a well-balanced offense with four players averaging double digits and a fifth player averaging 9 points per game.

Texas is a young team with six freshmen on the roster and has lost more than one close game during a tough Big 12 schedule despite their lack of experience. The Bearcats also have fought their way through their fair share of adversity this year. If Mick Cronin’s guys play with the defensive tenacity that saw them knock off a nation-leading seven ranked teams during the season, than surely we will see them in round three.

Catch plenty of action and throw back a green beer (or 12) before the 10th-seeded Musketeers face off against seventh-seeded Notre Dame in a battle of Catholic supremacy ... on the hardwood (in terms of religion, they’re all winners).

On paper this looks like a great game and hopefully it plays out that way on the court. As most college hoops fans know, the Muskies are led by the outstanding backcourt duo of Tu Holloway and Mark Lyons. They average 17 points and 15.5 points, respectively.

Notre Dame doesn’t have a go-to scorer after losing their stud, Tim Abromaitis, early in the year. But what the Fighting Irish don’t lack is a core group of players that work their tails off and come up with wins. A big match up in this game will be between big-men Jack Cooley and Kenny Frease. If either one can have a monster game expect that team to win.

I think Xavier will have their hands full but I also think the Musketeers play some of their best ball during tournament time. I think Xavier pulls it out by five or so. Although the Reds look like their going to be damned good this year I’m not ready for the hoops season to end early. Best of luck to both teams!